The Snow Man

[hope]

The Snow Man

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spuces rough in the distant glitter.

Of January sun; and not to think
Of the misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sounds of a few leaves,

Which is the soound of the land
Full of the same wind
Thant is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

WALLACE STEVENS